Just Go: Celebrities Line Up to Help Unusual Suspects' Youth Program

The Unusual Suspects Theatre Company will host its annual spring gala May 29 at Cicada Restaurant in Downtown Los Angeles to help raise money for the program, which aims to empower youth, ages 9-21, in underserved communities in L.A. County by providing theater arts mentoring in partnership with local agencies. Among those expected to attend the event are Ed Asner, Viola Davis and Mariska Hargitay. Universal Pictures director of development Sara Scott, who has been helping the organization for nearly a decade, first got involved when a college friend and she began researching orgs that could sponsor a nonprofit they were trying to start up.

"The curriculum they have created is really incredible, because the kids come out of it having learned on an academic level and grown on an emotional level," Scott said. "You see kids working together who might have been enemies on the streets, and this program has them viewing everyone as equals."